Description
This engaging and concise new edition offers the student and general reader a compact, readable treatment of British membership of the European Union (EU) from 1973 up until the present day and Brexit, with detailed analysis of the period 1945-1972 accounting for Britain's absence from the formation of the EU.
It provides a highly distilled and accessible analysis and overview of some of the parameters and recurring features of Britain’s membership of the European Union, touching on all the major facets of membership at this critical time in Britain’s relationship with Europe.
Key features of the new edition:
- examines the constant and changing character of British membership of the EU;
- discusses the problematical and often paradoxical features of EU membership;
- familiarises the reader with both academic and public debates about the subject;
- offers thematic treatment of all aspects of policy and attitudes towards the EU;
- significantly restructured and updated to include the origins of the decision to hold a referendum on UK membership of the EU, the campaign, explanations for its outcome, and the course, substance and implications of the UK-EU Brexit negotiations.
This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and the generally interested reader in the areas of European Politics/Studies, British Politics, EU Politics/Studies, Area Studies and International Relations.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Europe and the European Union
2. Back to the future
3. Belonging without believing
4. Leading from behind: Opt-outs, opt-ins and red lines
5. Party games and politics
6. Devolution and European Union membership
7. The press and the European Union
8. The pound, the euro and the City
9. Britain, the European Union and the wider world
10. ‘Banging on about Europe’ – The Conservatives and the European Union 2010-2015
11. Hallmarks of British membership of the EU
12. The Referendum of 2016 – The campaign
13. The Referendum of 2016 – The result
14. The May government and Brexit 2016-2019: Decline and Fail
15. The Brexiter government, 2019-2020
